is there an XCOM thread?

Anyone who chooses to play multiplayer: I highly recommend adding a flying saucer to your squad. Total bargain.

haven't even thought about mp tbh - it's good?

It isn't robust or anything, but if you want to play a quick, evenly-matched game against another person it's pretty fun.

tech tree:

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/images/5534167-1350750176.jpg

apparently, pc mods are out for this already

nice, guess i'm close to the end (of this playthrough)

have they said anything about a mac version yet?!

Dammit, getting close enough to taze a dude is annoying

Giving some of my dudes the brush-haired classic squaddie 'do with facial hair amuses me as it looks like I'm going into battle with Questlove as my sniper

Yeah, I get pissed off when your advisers complain about you killing an alien rather than stunning it - would be nice to be able to draft them, give them a stunner and let them try.

I enjoy the base mgmt and researchy bits. Then again, I love Kairosoft games.

I'd pay money for just an "Xcom Tycoon" game, come to think of it.

Also, I just noticed that each research item/project has a code name. Awesome.

It's amazing, the technology tree is THE single most tempting aspect of this game I've seen yet. Maybe I'll hit this up over Christmas break or something.

the "countries decide not to fund you anymore" is some bullshit. we got fuckin' pulse rifles and the ability to take live captures, what the fuck you got?

a better explanation might have been "countries are too panicked to allocate funds anymore due to etc etc etc"

I mean, I get the gameplay reason why they did it, I just wish they woulda justified it better

HA! There's a Voynich Manuscripts ref in here!

The defunding from countries was always stupid in the original, seems like it could work with just a little more window-dressing, some SimCity style fake newspapers that suggest the country is gradually coming under the sway of head-in-the-sand isolationist parties insisting that the UFO crisis is being overstated, or asking why our President is sending good Russian blood and treasure off to fight a war that has barely impacted Asia yet, or whatever. Then a few turns later the newsfeed could tell you that the Russian President had lost his re-election bid, then a little after that the funding gets cut....something. But maybe this would be a drag on the game's pace. There could just be a news ticker running across the bottom of the screen, no dialogue boxes as such.

Exactly, and they already use newstickers to relay plot-relevant info after you've finished a mission

There's definitely more set up in the original game about this - i remember there was a lot of talk about alien infiltrators, government subversion, increased terror attacks/abductions etc. It was pretty cool because if you noticed a country was increasingly hostile, you could set up a patrol or base there and often see the increased UFO activity to match, sometimes finding an alien base as well. I don't know if the new game considers this stuff, more likely it's simply the terror meter.

Dammit, getting close enough to taze a dude is annoying

How the hell do you plan for this? I either give everyone a stunner and then everyone gets taken out because I don't have enough grenades, or only one guy has a stunner, inw which case they're invariably the other side of the battlefield when an opportunity for stunning arises.

And in any case, if I try to get to close, I get mullered, especially since anything less than 60% hit-rate results in an automatic miss. No wonder everyone's withdrawing funding, these chancers can't shoot an alien that's standing 4ft in front of them.

To be fair, they're pretty good at shooting aliens through cars/concrete blocks/comrade's heads.

you can upgrade the arc thrower in the foundry i guess, but i haven't done it myself to be able to say what that actually means. i have been pretty lucky so far, although getting some of the big guys to just between 1 and 3 health is frustrating to say the least.

i put the arc thrower on an assault and have my other dudes suppress, taking pistol shots to get the alien's health down, then run up on him and stun. it's a delicate operation but like w/ everything else in this game it's all about patience.

Arc thrower upgrade increases chance to stun and allows stuns below 6HP instead of 3HP, so it helps a little. Adam's advice is sound. My strategy is to have at least one or two soldiers ready to kill in case the stun fails, and have your stunner have good enough armor/health to survive a point blank shot if you have to wait until next turn. supression is good too.

i do miss the the chaos of stun bomb launchers knocking out your own men in a cramped UFO that was in the original though lol

you think this is annoying, wait until you get to the psi units... ;)

Suppression is an awesome trait.
I can see playing this game for months.

Also I want to mention that I really like the design choice they made here - stunning aliens has a high risk, but the reward is high as well - you get research credits from the interrogation in addition to their weapons. Guns in this game can't be destroyed, are rarely sellable, and expensive enough that even acquiring a single Plasma Rifle is a major boon.

I think I need to start my playthrough over. I suck.

I wish they had spent 5 minutes to make more npc models. Vid of streets under attack show the same three people running and screaming, only cloned 50x

They could have at least altered the hair color

the longer i play, the fewer qualms i have about reloading save games... sometimes it just gets too brutal!

yeah i am doing multiple saves per mission by this point. the latest terror mission i am on is an absolute slaughter.

Urgh. Crash at the end of the 1st tutorial mission. Which I already played in the demo. Computer games I hate you.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/xcom-enemy-unknown/1226472p1.html

DLC leakage. China.

This is one of the reasons I like pc gaming; you can go in and recover cut content, like the Second Wave mode:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/17/xcom-mod-second-wave/

played the demo and did not like. id dig it on pc i think, but console path mapping with a gamepad is always awful imo

It's a little bit frustrating at times but I can't say I've accidentally wound up in the wrong place more than once or twice.

i may need to play this on easy! it gets REAL FRUSTRATING but is terribly fun

yeah I am kinda stuck right now, despite playing on Normal.

You can change the difficulty of the demo, tho, but you have to change a digit in the .ini file

i think you can change the difficulty in the pause menu

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=449402621768837

German gamer nerds decide to shoot a live-action bit

heh,requires no translation

i'm guessing the first dude forgot to hit run n gun

i am really sad there is not a blow-by-blow cankles playthrough of this game happening

ha nice video

The guy playing the Thin Man looks like Ralf Huetter.

nerd power!
http://sinepost.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/probability-in-games-xcom/

Yeah, that probability article is insane.

newsbit:

http://www.destructoid.com/borderlands-2-ships-5m-copies-xcom-deemed-a-success-237760.phtml

Of course, hearing specifics on a per-game basis would be nice. For Borderlands 2, "one of the most successful releases in 2K's history," there have been over 5 million units shipped to date. Firaxis Games' XCOM: Enemy Unknown wasn't given exact numbers, but Take-Two called it a "critical and commercial success." That makes me very happy indeed.

Ok, fine, now start working on the lunar & martian expansion campaigns

I wonder if they would have terror from the deep be dlc and not a sequel.. since its original release was basically a re-skin with some small tweaks here and there.

http://sinepost.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/xcom-tftd.png?w=540&h=338

damn this game was ugly

hahaha that screengrab actually makes me feel like playing it though!

firaxis is the only company still doing old-school expansion packs. i would buy one for this game in a second.

did not know that the dude behind the original went out to make a GBA version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVQg681_k9Q

http://playwhatyoulikesrpgreviews.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/rebelstar-tactical-command-2005-analysis/

http://playwhatyoulikesrpgreviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/rebelstar_tactical_command_gez_fry_character_jorel_ruby_art.jpg

i am really sad there is not a blow-by-blow cankles playthrough of this game happening

― set the controls for the heart of the congos (thomp), Saturday, October 27, 2012 2:21 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

im waiting until its on sale. im more interested in Xenonauts at this point